FrAcTuRe

The princess of Philodom was admired for her beauty. Her name was Rosea, and she was known throughout the kingdom for her love of roses. She had grown the most beautiful garden anyone had ever seen—thousands of rose trees spread across its vast grounds, each carrying flowers of a deep, vibrant red.

Yet whenever people came to see her garden, their eyes were drawn to Rosea more than to the roses themselves. No matter how beautiful the garden was, it seemed almost ordinary beside her. It was said that God had created her with careful hands, taking His time to show the world just how beautiful His creation could be.

Among all the roses in her garden, there was one that had captured Rosea’s heart more than all the others. The royal gardeners tended to the rest, but Rosea always insisted on watering this one herself.

To an ordinary eye, there was nothing remarkable about it. It looked no different from the thousands surrounding it. But Rosea saw something in it that the others seemed to lack.

She had planted it herself when it was nothing more than a fragile little stem, and watched it bloom year after year. Perhaps that was why its color seemed brighter to her than all the others.

It grew at the very edge of the garden, beside the fence, in a quiet corner away from the others. The other roses seemed almost jealous as Rosea spent more time beside that lonely flower than she did with any of them.

Rosea usually approached the rose from the same side, admiring the face of it that greeted her. She never thought to look behind it. Then, one day, Rosea walked outside the garden and beyond its fence. For the first time, she saw her favorite rose from the other side of the fence. Disbelief filled her eyes, then came… disgust.

On the back of the rose, where she had never thought to look, was a dark spot. It was not an insect, not a sign of disease—the rose was not dying. It was only a single petal that had grown differently—a strange little mutation that had taken on the color black.

None of her other roses had ever dared to show her such an imperfection. So Rosea took her sharp blade, cut the rose from its branch, and threw it far away from the others.

She could have cut away the single black petal and left the rest untouched. She could have kept the rose she had loved for years. But instead, she abandoned her years of love in a single moment of disgust. Because Rosea never truly loved the rose, she only loved the beautiful side of it.

The rose had not changed that day. Rosea had simply stopped loving what she could no longer pretend not to see.